Stretching Toward the Sun
By Lindsey Norine
@lindsnorine
I hadn’t planned to do this again. A year ago I made a big production of planting daffodil bulbs with my two toddlers. They wielded their tiny metal shovels with glee while I explained that bulbs need to be buried for a cold, dark winter before they can grow. I promised our hard work would pay off in the spring. I covered their dimpled hands with my own as we smoothed the dirt over the bulbs, proud of our enriching morning.
Then—to my dismay and my children’s heartbreak—they never bloomed. Our neighbors’ yards exploded in yellow blossoms while our scraggly green sprouts refused to produce a single bud.
As such, I tried to ignore the bulbs in the grocery store this year, but annoyance made way for optimism at the last second. Maybe they just didn’t get enough sun the first time around?
I dig the shallow holes in minutes. The early autumn ground is soft, giving way to my spade without argument. I give each bulb a home, careful they are placed upright, roots down. I want them to have the best chance to stretch up toward the sun when winter finally thaws.
***
I am twenty years old and a few semesters into a painting degree. The paintbrush feels like an extension of my body, a new limb with an effortless dance. I have sold quite a few of my pieces, and I’ve even begun to describe myself using the word. Painter.
My painting advisor, Professor Battle, is the perfect mixture of prolific and kooky. She wears overalls and a tool belt and drinks her coffee out of mason jars. A halo of frizzy curls encircle her face and weathered tan skin crinkles around her gray eyes. An aroma of smoke and soil follows her everywhere. She tends to a small brood of baby chicks—the origin and purpose unknown to me—nestled under heat lamps in the back of the painting studio, blocking the fire exit. There are pieces hanging in museums with her name signed in the corner.
Professor Battle’s method of teaching is mainly to observe. She offers very little direct guidance. Rather, her presence itself embodies a quiet permission. Yes, you can try the wacky, giant idea in your head. You might as well try it all, at least once. In fact, you must.
Under her tutelage, I’ve honed technical skill and sharpened my artistic eye. More importantly, though, I’ve learned to paint from my gut—to trust my eye and innate ability.
My creative roots have grown deep here, in my own cubicle of the painting studio. The first two years felt joyous. But so far junior year has been marked with a growing feeling of being stifled. The stream of inspiration is turning to sludge. The thought of my next blank canvas gives me an itchy, anxious feeling instead of the usual flicker of excitement. Ideas, which are usually easy to conjure, feel muffled and far away.
The stakes are higher now—grades and money are attached to my work.
I can’t afford to stay stuck.
***
Our third child was born the summer after the failed daffodil bulbs.
The pregnancy was brutal. A never-ending parade of viruses brought home by our preschoolers added to my relentless morning sickness. As the baby grew, my connective tissue disorder caused spasms of nerve pain. The labor, too, was fraught with complications, landing me back in the hospital a week after our son was born.
I step out the front door and take the steps to the driveway. The concrete is warm under my bare feet but the leaves are just starting to wear their warm hues. There was a time I would have ached to capture the beauty of this sight in paint.
Faint cries carry in the breeze and my chest heaves a deep, weary sigh. My husband’s attempts to soothe the baby must not be working. I’ll have to feed him—again. He had dropped down to the first weight percentile at his last checkup. A tongue tie revision and reflux medication have helped, but I’m worried I’m not making enough milk.
As I pour out every drop for him, I feel myself going dry. My relationships, health, and interests have all withered. There isn’t room for any part of me outside of mothering. It feels like there is never enough of me to go around. Someone is constantly crying out for me. I am coming up short for everyone—myself included.
I am deep in the dirt: dark, lonely, and dormant.
What if I’m pointed in the wrong direction?
What if my shoots can’t reach the sun?
What if I never bloom again?
***
I am on my stool facing a large blank canvas. My knives, brushes, and palette lie still on the table next to me. Another semester has gone by, and my creative funk has only gotten worse. My struggle shows in my work—I am receiving low grades for the first time.
I don’t hear Professor Battle approach, and jump when she lays a rough hand on my shoulder, pulling up short from my first brush stroke. I swivel toward her.
“You need to build this one,” she states simply, her slate gray eyes boring into me. “Come on.”
We spend the rest of the three-hour class building my first canvas together. She teaches me to construct the frame and rolls her eyes when I startle at the nail gun. I do better with the staple gun—painstakingly stretching the cotton over the frame so it lays perfectly smooth.
I stay after class to coat the unspoiled fabric with white gesso—the primer that will firm up the canvas as it dries—so it will be ready to take on pigment.
Professor Battle nods in approval as she walks past me to leave for the day. She has been hard on me about my creative slump, reminding me we don’t get to sit around and wait for a muse.
“I’m afraid to mess this one up,” I admit to her just before she is out of earshot.
She keeps walking, calling over her shoulder, “You know what Van Gogh says.”
I do.
***
“Mama! Mama! MAMA!” My kindergartner shouts, jumping up and down and yanking on my shirt. “They are blooming. Come on!” She drags me over to the flowerbed and crouches to inspect them. Completely unaware of my grudge, the daffodils dutifully emerged this spring.
We come inside once our noses are red from the chilly air. Lunch is still somehow hours away, so I pull out the new watercolors from the kids’ Easter baskets. I set out paper, brushes, and bowls of water, and put a tiny painting smock on each kid. My middle child dives right in, painting with quick, bold strokes while I make myself coffee. I pour the cold brew into a mason jar and sit down at the table with them. By my feet the baby squawks with delight, grinding a cracker into the rug.
I notice my daughter staring at her blank paper. “What’s up?” I ask her.
“I don’t know what to paint,” she answers.
“Why don’t you paint the daffodils?”
“Okay!” She fills her brush with yellow and hesitates again. She looks up at me, “I’m not sure if I know how to paint a daffodil. I’m scared I might mess it up.”
I close my eyes for a moment, an ache of familiarity settling behind my ribs. “I know the feeling,” I tell her. My professional paints are stored in a closet a floor below us. I haven't painted since I was pregnant with her.
Van Gogh’s words come to mind. “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
After building the canvas with Professor Battle almost a decade ago, I had procrastinated, trying to work up the nerve to begin. But once my brush finally dragged the wet, thick paint over the cotton, inspiration washed over me like rain after a long drought. For the first time, I let my doubt and fear inform my painting. I channeled my feelings into the work rather than trying to suppress them. I let the anger at my inner critic splash into deep hues and slash light across the canvas.
The finished product was not a masterpiece. That canvas doesn’t hang on the walls of our home—it leans against the wall of the storage room, gathering dust along with my tubes of pigment. Yet I hold on to the painting because it is a tangible representation of my choice to express my struggle rather than push it down.
It’s okay to wallow in the dark for a while, quiet and bitter. But when the time comes, I can trust the depth of my roots and reach. The sun never left me. It was there all along.
I’ve been rubbing my thumb over the condensation gathering on my coffee. An icy drip brings me back to the present.
“I think you should just start, honey,” I finally answer my daughter. “It’s okay if you make a mistake while you’re painting. And it’s okay if what you’re doing feels hard. That’s part of growing.”
She smiles, convinced, and finally plants a giant blob of yellow right in the middle of her page.
“Will you paint with me, Mama?” She asks after a couple minutes. “I bet you are real good at painting.”
I chuckle. “You know what? I am.” I take a last sip of coffee and pick up a paint brush. I swirl together yellow, blue, and the tiniest drop of red to make the perfect shade of green. The brush travels across the paper effortlessly, steady and sure as always.
Emotions bubble up in my chest as I work. After a few minutes I’ve made a sea of daffodils, tall and proud, reaching toward the sun. They made it.
And so will I.
Guest essay written by Lindsey Norine. Lindsey is married to her crush from church camp and together they have three majestic, hilarious babes. Her tribe resides in central Iowa where she is a voice teacher and choral clinician. She is a near-professional coffee drinker, flower enthusiast, and occasional painter. A lover of words, her favorite time spent is over a deep conversation, a good book, or using her own to encourage others. You can find more of her words on Instagram or on her website.